Valley View University Techiman campus gets hospital
A fifty-bed capacity hospital of the Valley View University (VVU) has been inaugurated at the Techiman campus of the university in the Techiman municipality in the Brong Ahafo Region.
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The facility is expected to serve both the VVU community and the public in recognition of the generosity of the Techiman Traditional council which donated a vast stretch of land for the VVU for its expansion.
The Techimanhene, Oseadeayo Ameyaw Akumfi IV, cut the sod on November 16, 2014 to commence work on the hospital building which received financial support of about GH¢500,000 from the Prudential Bank.
Official commencement of the operations of the facility will be on September 1, 2016, under the leadership of Dr Seth Adu Agyemang.
The Rector of the Techiman Campus of the VVU, Pastor Dr Peter Agyekum Boateng, would lead a team to work closely with the Health Services of the Adventist Church in supervising the facility.
Inaugural ceremony
At the inaugural ceremony, the President of Loma Linda University and Adventist Health International, Dr Richard H. Hart, indicated that there were about 1,075 health facilities of the Seventh-Day Adventists worldwide while 25 of these facilities were in Africa.
He further indicated that there were over 1, 012 universities and colleges of the Seventh-Day Adventists around the globe, and said the combination of education and health was a holistic venture an institution or a group could invest in.
As a physician, he made use of what he termed “J-CHIFEFS”, explaining that the ‘J’ represented Justice and that in the area of health delivery there was the need to seek justice for everyone who accessed health care.
On ‘C’, he said it was necessary for the health workers to work in tune to true Compassion for the patients who visited the facility at all times.
He said the ‘H’ and the ‘I’ stood for Humility and Integrity, explaining that by being humble and serving patients in honesty and fairness meant the facility would begin to blossom.
While he used Excellence and Freedom to represent the ‘E’ and ‘F’, he added Self Control for the ‘S’, saying the three among all, remained paramount in the provision of health to the people.
Complementary roles
The Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr Eric Opoku, in an address delivered on his behalf by the Techiman Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Felix Oppong Amponsah, said the vision of the VVU to add the health facility to education was a positive step in the right direction.
He said the government could not do it alone and that the VVU, for that matter, the SDA Church complementing the efforts of government was commendable.
He said the region had recorded high cases of national epidemics, including meningitis in 2015 and expressed the hope that the hospital would augment government’s efforts to fight diseases and reduce mortality in 2016 and in the future.
He said apart from the fact that the facility would soon be accredited to attend to patients who visited it with National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards, he was hopeful that the facility would become a referral point for people in and around Techiman and praised the authorities of the school for the foresight.
Traditional Authority
In a speech delivered for him by the Akwamuhene of Techiman Traditional Council, Nana Owusu Gyarena, the Techimanhene, who doubles as the President of the Techiman Traditional Council, Osedeayo Ameyaw, lauded the VVU and the SDA church for making good use of the land the council had entrusted to the authorities of the university.
He urged the church to continue to contribute to national development, especially in the area of education and health, adding that the inauguration of the facility was a feather in the cup of the VVU and urged authorities of the facility to equip it with the needed logistics for growth.
The President of the Northern Ghana Union Mission (NGUM) of the SDA Church, Pastor Dr Kwame Kwanin Boakye, was supported by the Vice Chancellor of the VVU, Pastor Prof. Daniel K. Bediako, and the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Pastor Prof. Robert Osei-Bonsu to dedicate the facility.